The tower rose like a blackened spine against the horizon, its upper spires swallowed by a sky that never seemed to brighten. Students whispered it was built where the brutal combat of factions scarred the world, though no record confirmed it. Records were rarely honest in a world like this.
Beyond its walls, two powers ruled the world: the Wizards, who bound reality with magic and will, and the Technologists, who shaped it with cyber weapons and devices. Both despised one another. And yet, here in the mystifying academy, they were forced to study side by side. Forced, though the blood on the stones suggested otherwise.
Children were sent at the age of thirteen, chosen by birthright, faction, or chance. They were coerced to claw up the ladder of ranks in time… or vanished from the rolls entirely. No one spoke of where the vanished went. They didn’t have to.
The rules of the Tower were etched into every stone: rise, or be erased. No bribes, no excuses. Students who reached a certain age before advancing ranks were dismissed in the only ways the Tower allowed—exile or death. The unprepared didn’t last long, their names crossed out quietly after a duel, a contract gone wrong, or a moment of defiance punished without hesitation.
Essence drove everything—food, shelter, advancement. The fortunate earned it through contracts sanctioned by the Tower or higher ranks. The desperate took it however they could. And the stones remembered every drop spilled in its name.
Some students rose quickly, gilded by mentors and family names. Others were crushed before their first year ended. The students kept no secrets, but the walls kept them all. And deeper still, behind closed doors and behind the eyes of meditation, there waited the Void—a plane of will where spell and machine stripped bare their disguises..
The Academy was not a school. It was more, and the only question it ever asked was simple: what will break first, the body or the mind?
And somewhere, among the newest arrivals, stood one boy who should never have been here. He remembered little of how he came, less of why. His name was written in the rolls, yet out of place—listed among the Wizards, yet sent to the mysterious venue by mistake. Or perhaps by design.
He bore no family crest, no mentor’s recommendation, no whispers of promise. Only fragments, broken flashes of memory that cut like glass whenever he reached for them. A voice. A mark. Shadows without faces.
To the others, he was an anomaly. To himself, a hollow beginning.
He did not yet know that the world had words for such a mistake.351Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLcHZxKbNLr
A word whispered only when both sides fell silent.351Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFAn7REAWM
Arcanexus.
and then Add to home screen.